A long line of strange....

We had family stop in and spend the night with us last night on their way home from seeing their Marine daughter off on her deployment to Africa. Since I was a little girl, it has been drilled into my head by my grandma and my mom that you NEVER allow guests to see your house dirty. I can honestly say I have NEVER seen dust in my grandma's house (she's gone now but grandpa keeps up very nicely!) or my parent's house. It just isn't done. I can remember when I was a little girl and my daddy was a truck driver back then and when mom found out he was coming home, she would stay up all night cleaning house. Many times I would wake up in the middle of the night to the strangely comforting sound of the vacuum cleaner. I loved living in a clean home (I didn't really take part in the cleaning of it but I sure made up for it by messing it up!) but I had always just assumed that the "clean gene" had somehow missed me. I was not filthy but a big mess never bothered me much. However, the older I get, the more that "clean gene" makes it's presence known...in a weird way. Normally people will straighten things up, clear off the counter and hide any clutter so their guests will be comfortable. Me? I clean the most obscure things that no one will EVER notice...but me. Take yesterday for example. Yes I did the usuals, made the bed, swept, mopped, cleaned bathrooms, etc., but my main focus was on 2 areas that, for the life of me, I do not know why I focused on them. First up was the bottom shelf of my pantry. I am blessed to have a very large U-shaped pantry next to the kitchen. Unfortunately, it tends to be the catch-all for everything that doesn't have a permanent home. For some reason the entire bottom shelf was bugging me so I pulled everything off, vacuumed, purged and reorganized. Found quite a few things I forgot I had in the process. This whole thing took at least an hour. Now, I had no idea what time my family would arrive only that it would be after lunch. It was 10:30 when I finished. Now the second place that was bothering me was my kitchen drawers. Not the junk one-there is just no hope for that one. It was the silverware drawer, the cooking utensil drawer and the drawer that holds my towels and hotpads. What guest is going to be looking in there????? For whatever reason, I felt the overwhelming need to clean out the little crumbs that collect in them and to reorganize the storage (seeing as how I had just rediscovered a lot of stuff). This I completed around 11:30. A quick PBJ and I was back at it, sweeping and mopping. Then I get the call that they are less than an hour away. WHAT????? I have at least 2 hours of proper cleaning left to do and I still had to shower and blowdry my hair because you always should be neat and clean for guests right? ANYWAY, everything managed to get done, I smelled good and we all had a great time. AND my pantry and drawers ROCK!!!!!

On the cooking front, I am just trying to make it to the end of the month! Nothing special is planned except for my twins birthday party tomorrow. I will be making a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting tinted orange and a chocolate ganache poured over the top. No idea what we will eat for dinner but dessert is HANDLED! Then on Nov. 1st (their actual birthday) we are taking them out to dinner and to a movie so no cooking for mama!!!! Ohhhhhh.......they will be turning 12. TWELVE??!! I cannot believe how fast it has gone by. My babies....WILL BE TEENAGERS IN A YEAR! Oh please say a prayer for me and hubby because we have gone through the whole teenanger teenager thing 3 times already and know what to expect. Oh well, I will try not to worry too much, they are really great kids and I am just going to cherish them everyday the Lord gives me with them.